There’s something in the air in Lincoln. It might just be the hope of spring. But the Nebraska football team—from fifth-year coach Bo Pelini on down—is convinced it’s more transformative than that.

Defensive end Cameron Meredith, on the third day of spring practices in preparation for his senior season, said, “We’re all vibing on it.”

But what is it?

“There’s a lot of confidence,” Meredith said, “but it’s not just confidence. It’s the reasons we have to be confident.”

The Huskers believe they’re a smarter team than the 2011 squad that went 9-4 overall, had a disappointing third-place division finish in its first season in the Big Ten and lost 30-13 to South Carolina in the Capital One Bowl. They say they’re more together, too. Pelini says they’re deeper and already showing signs of being better prepared, and he includes himself in the latter area.

Revenge is part of the players’ motivation—for the brutal beatings delivered at Wisconsin and Michigan, and the shocking upset by Northwestern in Lincoln—but the fire is burning hotter than that. How hot?

“If we don’t go to the national championship game,” quarterback Taylor Martinez said, “I’ll be disappointed. I think we’re all dreaming that big. We definitely can be that good.”

OK, that’s hot. Some might say it’s out of control.

There have been 10 full seasons since Nebraska last played for a national title, and 16 since it won one. Surely, most college football fans will have to see dramatic improvement from the Huskers before they’ll believe such a giant leap forward is possible.

Pelini probably likes his quarterback feeling so bold heading into his junior season, but, jeez, does Martinez have to say it out loud?

“Actually, I’m OK with it—absolutely,” Pelini said. “I want them to have expectations to be the best.”

2011: The good, the bad and the ugly finish

Expectations were very high last summer, when Nebraska and Wisconsin were the preseason favorites to win their divisions. They entered their game in Madison—the Huskers’ Big Ten debut—both at 4-0 and ranked in the top 10, but a 14-7 start for Martinez and company evaporated into a massive 48-17 defeat.

Four weeks later, the Huskers played their best game of the season, dominating powerful Michigan State 24-3 to move to 7-1 overall and 3-1 in Big Ten play. But in the next game, again at home, they fell to Northwestern. Michigan embarrassed them 45-17 in Ann Arbor in their next-to-last league game.

At 9-3 with a 5-3 Big Ten record, Nebraska was pretty good. But no good team in college football was harder to figure during conference play.

“It was a strange year,” Meredith said. “There were so much expectations from us, from the fans and everyone else. But once we lost the first game, the fans started doubting us. Then we lost the second one, and I think we got down. … Handling adversity was probably our biggest problem, in games and in general.”

Pelini’s take is a bit different; he believes his team “bought into the (early) hype” and had less trouble handling adversity than it did handling success.

Either way, the coach said, “you play a great game and people want to make you out to be the ’85 Bears; you lose and the sky is falling. The truth is somewhere in between.”

The truth was obvious to all involved after the bowl game vs. South Carolina. The Huskers started fast in that game and had a chance inside the Gamecocks’ 10-yard line to build a two-score lead heading into halftime. But then the turnovers came, joined by the parade of 1st-and-15s for Martinez and the suddenly clueless offense.

“Honestly, I don’t think the game should’ve been close,” Martinez said. “We should’ve blown them out.”

South Carolina’s 51-yard Hail Mary touchdown to Alshon Jeffery on the final play of the second quarter won’t soon be forgotten by anyone in Columbia—or in Lincoln.

“I’d never had a play like that happen to me before,” Pelini said. “And it’ll never happen again.”

Until the turnover that preceded Jeffery’s touchdown, Pelini was almost certain Nebraska would put the Gamecocks away early and claim the program’s third consecutive 10-win season.

“Coach Bo really didn’t say much after the game, but I know it got under him,” Martinez said. “He knew we should’ve won the game, that we (were) a lot better team than they were. That one is still haunting him.”

Again, Pelini doesn’t quite see it that way: “Something about that game and the way things went down really affected me for the better,” he said. “And not just me, but it translated to the football team. I really believe that has happened. I can’t wait for this season to come.”

Why 2012 can be a lot better

You won’t find many Nebraskans chanting for four more years. Certainly not for four more losses. Although Pelini is well-respected both inside the coaching fraternity and among Huskers fans, the fact is each of his four teams has lost four games. More of the same isn’t what anyone involved with Nebraska football wants to see.

“From Season 1 to Season 4, it’s night and day how different and how much better we are,” said linebacker Will Compton, who’ll be a fifth-year senior in the fall. “But the record’s the same. We shouldn’t be putting out that record still.”

There are reasons to believe this could be the year the Huskers get back to a BCS game for the first time since 2001.

An offense that ranked 15th nationally in rushing and fourth in the Big Ten in scoring in Tim Beck’s first season as coordinator returns nearly intact, and Martinez and his coaches expect the rising junior to take additional steps forward as a thrower.

More importantly, Pelini would bet the farm on significant improvement from his defense, which ranked in the middle of the Big Ten pack despite the All-American exploits of linebacker Lavonte David and cornerback Alfonzo Dennard.

“We’ve made some big-time strides in the offseason,” Pelini said. “This year’s group understands our defense better than last year’s group. We’re going to be a lot more multiple than we were in the last year or two. And we’ve got as much depth and talent in the secondary as I’ve been around in a long time. Our talent overall is very good. We have a chance to be pretty salty.”

Pelini and his players are careful not to criticize last season’s best-known Huskers defenders. But when the 2012 unit’s leaders touch fists with teammates this spring and yell “Blackshirts!” they’re reminding everyone in the huddle and on the sideline about all that needs to change.

“The defense was more knowledgeable when (Ndamukong) Suh and those guys were here,” Meredith said. “We need to get back to the basics of what it took to be great: the knowledge of the defense and playing as a team, and the mentality that (opponents are) not getting a first down on third down. That whole mentality needs to change.”

And if they’re a tad less star-powered this season?

“Look at Jeremy Lin and the Knicks when their (stars) were out,” Meredith said.

If the Blackshirts—and the program—are going to complete a full comeback, the determination and attitude it’ll take can be traced back to the first days back in Lincoln after the South Carolina game, when winter break was over and winter conditioning was just around the corner. There were heart-to-hearts involving Compton, Meredith and their defensive teammates and coaches; Martinez and other offensive leaders and their teammates and coaches; of course Pelini, and many combinations thereof.

“My message was that I’m genuinely here for everybody,” Compton said, “and we all need each other. Check your ego at the door because we don’t need any of that ‘I don’t get my opportunity, I don’t get this or that.’ It’s not about that—it’s the team.”

They all have their own ways of feeling and expressing motivation. Martinez, he of the national title dreams, meanwhile wants some revenge on two teams in particular: “Wisconsin and Michigan,” he said. “And they both come here.”

Pelini?

“I don’t have to prove anything to anybody,” he said, “but I coach and approach my job like there’s always something to prove. That’s how I live my life. I want to be the best, and I want our football team to be the best. I want to win championships.”

There’s something in the air in Husker Nation. Just a good vibe, or something more substantial—whatever it is, there’s no sense denying it.